Alone in the Dark Flames
by Genox
Summary: A squad of five elite soliders is sent into the last remaining Umbrella Facility. This island will be harsh, forcing them to take advantage of each others weaknessess and depend on their skills to survive the monsters inside and out.
1. The Mission

**AN: My first RE fic. :D**

**Please R&R.**

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**Disclaimer: I do not own Resident evil or any of its wonderful characters.**

Leon strode down the sterile white hallway, hands in his brown jacket's pockets. The crowded blue hallway was filled with dozens of busy workers moving from office to office, doing their jobs. This building had a special purpose as the center of all anti-bioterrorism around the world. Hundreds of thousands of cases went through this center every day, constantly being processed and assigned to groups like the BSAA and TerraSave. It was purely government funded, of course.

Leon managed to push his way past a particularly large group of workers into one particular side room. He closed the door behind him quickly, and took a deep breath, looking around at his new surroundings. He had been told to come here by a certain marine. One Captain Vhrott, according to the e-mail. One thing Leon noticed instantly was the unmistakable stench of a cigar. The other thing was that he was not alone in the room.

The large room was lit only by a blue projector light, which was not currently displaying anything. It was also filled with chairs, but only four of these were filled. Cpt. Vhrott was watching Leon from his place at the front of the room.

Leon coughed as he inhaled the pungent smoke. "Jesus Christ, you're gonna kill yourself with that shit!" Leon mentally shouted at himself for breaking his composure, but he _hated _cigars wholeheartedly. "Sorry. I'm Leon S. Kennedy. You e-mailed me? Something about a mission?"

Vhrott only stared at him. Leon quickly dropped the question and sat down on the brown metal chair next to one of the others. He realized that the other people in the room were also Racoon City survivors. The closet one to him was Chris Redfield, a muscle-bound former S.T.A.R.S member, now working under the BSAA. A loyal person if he had ever met one. Nice sister too. Next to him was Jill Valentine, a blonde-haired woman who was also former S.T.A.R.S. Leon just knew her and Chris were romantically involved. They seemed like the perfect match, but perhaps too afraid to voice their own opinions. Next in line was Claire Redfield, Chris' sister. A real beauty, she was. Leon had experienced her skills first hand as her partner during the Racoon City outbreak. Her hair was a beautiful shade of red. Leon looked at the last person in the chairs. A hispanic man by the name of Carlos Oliviera. Leon had never met Carlos before, but he knew Jill knew him.

Vhrott placed his hands behind his back silently, and began to speak in a loud, booming voice, not unlike those of the drill seargents during his training for the government. "Hello and welcome. I trust you all know each other, and you all got the message. Well, let me tell you a little bit about this mission." Jill looked at Carlos uneasily. Leon wondered why. "A couple of months ago we received some serious intel on an island in the South China Sea. Apparently, there's an old Umbrella base there. Probably the last one left. It should not be there!" Chris nodded his head in an approving manner. He knew Umbrella better than anyone else in the room. And that was saying something. The man knew his

(former) enemy like the back of his hand.

"But that's not the best part. I think and would love to know this," Vhrott said. Claire leaned forward, eyes glued to the screen that displayed the map of this island. "Sherry Birkin has been located, and is being kept on this island."

Claire gasped. "Oh my god... Sherry... I'm coming... just like I promised. Don't worry baby," She muttered to herself more than anyone else. Leon sighed in relief. He had almost begun to believe that Sherry was dead.

Vhrott spoke some more, his piercing blue eyes fierce with fire. He finished the presentation. Olivera had not spoken at all. Vhrott left off telling them they had an hour to get ready for the boat.

The lights came on and the five survivors filtered out of the red room. Leon stood outside the door waiting for Claire. She was wearing a red vest. How Leon loved those red vests. Claire went over to a window and looked out upon the skyline. She was dazzlingly beautiful in the majestic rays of the sun. Leon stood next to her.

"It's been a long time, Claire. Three years. How've you been?" Claire looked up at Leon. She was crying, a rare thing for a Redfield to do. "It's been longer for Sherry. Ten whole years on that island, with Umbrella, with them doing god knows what to her. She needed our help, and we failed her."

Leon put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We haven't failed her yet. She's still alive. We can make things right, Claire." Claire looked down. "What if we don't, Leon? What if she dies when we get there?"

Leon had nothing to say to that.


	2. Thoughts and Opinions

Chris pulled a rifle from the rack of weapons and weighted it carefully. It had a good balance and a decent scope. Chris rapidly stuffed the weapon into a bulging black bag filled with guns and ammo. Call him paranoid, but he wasn't about to be caught empty handed when the time came for a real fight. That, and he couldn't shake what had happened the last time he had come into a fight ill-prepared.

_Sheva burst into a sprint, the Wesker-Monster close behind. Chris pulled out his handgun, as he had run out of ammo for all his other weapons. Sheva clutched her bleeding side, desperately trying to move faster than a limp. She leaped onto another island in the center of the oppressive heat of the volcano. Her lungs burned, and she was unable to run any further. She collapsed from exhaustion and her injuries. _

_ Chris fired three shots from his Beretta. All three shots hit Wesker-Monster, but the damn thing didn't even flinch. He cursed under his breath as Wesker-Monster grabbed Sheva with his black tentacles. She wouldn't feel a thing if he killed her. Wesker-Monster laughed and ripped her in half, spilling her innards all over the floor. Chris screamed in horror. He went into a monstrous rage. When he woke up, he was in a helicopter flying to safety._

Chris couldn't forget the sight of Sheva's body, or what he had failed to do. He had nightmares, these more fresh and haunting than the old ones, reminding him every day of his failure to his partners.

He sighed and muttered to himself, "Not this time. Not now."

Chris slung his bag over his shoulder and strode out of the armory silently.

Claire got into the car with the four other team members. She was annoyed by the sudden e-mail, especially since she worked for Terra Save and she had just gotten three months of vacation, and now she had to spend the first week on some bullshit mission. She was pissed for sure, but if the president needed her, she wouldn't back down. Why did they need her, anyway? If it was just blowing up the facility they could have done that with any group of BSAA grunts. Still, it was Sherry. The little girl had been missing for ten years, and she was here now. That was a relief to Claire. She had been carrying the guilt with her for years now, and it had gone away just like that. Well, perhaps not all the guilt. God only knows what they had done to Sherry.

She looked at Leon and her heart fluttered. She really liked Leon, although she would never admit it. She wondered if Leon felt the same way about her. Claire hoped he did.

The other members were silent. Carlos wore a bullet proof vest over a black shirt, and he also had fingerless gloves on. He tinkered with his assault rifle a little, but stopped and looked at Jill. There was obviously some tension there. Jill wore her standard BSAA uniform, and so did Chris. Chris also had a bag slung over his shoulder, and Claire was actually quite curious as to its contents.

Claire heaved a sigh and crossed her legs, laying her head on the back of her seat.

Carlos got out of the car first, quickly stretching his arms out in the cold winter air. How ironic that they would be going to a tropical island in winter. A vacation this certainly was not. It was also ironic that he would be destroying the last Umbrella corp. facility in the world.. a company he used to listen to without hesitation. Until Jill convinced him that they were evil.

Ah, Jill. What a beautiful woman. He had pressured her into sex after Racoon City... They had never spoken since. Jill had never even had sex with Chris, although neither of them had admitted their feelings for each other. Carlos felt like shit for pressuring her into having sex with him, but it had been totally worth it.

The other members of the squad came out after him, moving towards the docks. The air was extremely chilly, and snow covered the ground. None of them were in winter clothing except for Leon. The guy looked like an asshole, Carlos thought. Very by the books. I already don't like him.

Water was on either side of the docks. The boat was docked at the port. It looked sturdy enough, and it was pretty large. Jill liked it.

Jill looked at Carlos again. She didn't feel comfortable around him. Not after Racoon. Man was disgusting, frankly.

Jill rapidly walked up the ramp to the boat. She was ready for anything from Carlos, but if he didn't talk to her, she wouldn't talk to him. Jill moved closer to Chris. The big man had saved her life, and she felt indebted to him. She loved him, and she knew he felt the same way. Perhaps they could start something together. Maybe it was meant to be.

She didn't like Carlos, that was for sure.

The boat started up after ten minutes, and it began it's journey to the island that would change each person's lives forever... and perhaps end one.

Regardless, they prepared in silence for this seemingly simple mission.

Next Chapter: **On the boat...**


	3. Firestorm

**AN: Thanks for the great reviews guys. :D This thing's going to be about fourty chapters, so you have plenty to look forward to.**

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**And yes, Carlos is an asshole.**

_The Allegiance_ skimmed through the water, looking almost ghostly in the midnight fog. It was commanded by a crew of twenty, mostly engineers and security. The red paint adorning its side only added to the monstrous look of the fairly large boat. Out of the silence, a storm came, a mighty storm filled with shearing bolts of lightning and deafing thunder. The waves began to gnash and tear at the _Alleigiance,_ with lightning landing powerful and crippling blows to the stern and port of the ship. Fires spread along the inner decks from the breaches in the useless boat.

Claire was woken from her sleep in the crew quarters, as were the others sleeping in the quarters. Screams abound as the ship tilted suddenly, flinging cabinets and people backwards and off balance. Claire hung onto her bunk as she desperately tried to wake Leon, whose sleeping head was resting on her lap.

"Leon, wake up! Leon! Damn it, wake up!" She yelled, shaking his shoulders frantically.

Leon woke up with a start, looking around at his surroundings and realizing what was happening.

He grabbed Claire and shouted over the sound of the storm outside, " What's going on?" Claire shook her head, " I don't know! But we need to get out of here! Look!" She pointed to the fire that was now spreading into the crew quarters. Leon looked over at Chris and Jill, and then to the fire extinguisher on the wall. "Grab that and give it to me," Leon said.

Chris grabbed the fire extinguisher in a quick, fluid motion and tossed it over to Leon, who caught it effortlessly. He backed up a few steps, and promptly doused the fire with extinguishing fluid. Leon dropped the extinguisher and began talking, " Alright, we'll go to the lifeboats, and get out of here. The ship's sinking, and we can't risk being on it when it goes down."

" Who the hell made you leader, Mr. Agent?" Chris objected. Leon opened his mouth to retort, but Claire replied, "Listen to him, Chris. He knows what he's doing." Chris became silent.

Leon pulled on his pants and shirt and so did Claire. They grabbed their weapons hurriedly, knowing that at any moment the ship could go down. They exited out the door into a long hallway, which had red emergency lights down the corridor. It was eerily silent except for the intermittent blare of the alarms. Claire held close to Leon, gun aimed forward. After they had confirmed the coast was clear, they signaled for Chris and Jill to follow.

Jill was the last one out. She looked at the sleeping form of Carlos in his own bed. Should she wake him up to help him? She moved toward him, and reached an arm forward. She held it over his face, until she pulled her hand back and decided against helping him. He was an asshole anyway.

They proceeded down the long hallway, shocked by the huge holes in the hull of the ship as they proceeded. The air was dusty, and it smelled of fresh corpses, and something else that was familiar, but not quite indentifiable.

The ship's floor rose upward at a steep 45 degree angle. Leon managed to leap onto the bottom step of a staircase leading to the top deck with a grunt. Claire grabbed onto his foot, and Chris grabbed onto Claire's, and Jill onto Chris'.

They were in a precarious situation, the corridor was quickly filling with water, and if they had to hang onto each other for a little while longer, they would fall and die. "Shit," Leon grunted, "This ain't easy..." Leon futilely tried to pull them up, to no avail.

"Not the way I planned to die," Jill muttered, mostly to herself than to anyone else.

"It's not the way you're going to die," Chris assured her.

"You got that right, steroids," a familiar voice said.

It was Carlos.

Carlos grabbed Leon's hand and grunted as he pulled them up the metal staircase, just as an emergency light burst into dozens of tiny shards next to him, some of them digging into his arm. Slowly, painfully, Carlos pulled them to safety. He was wearing a combat vest and had an assault rifle in his hands. His hair was partially burnt on one side, and his arm was full of glass, but he was otherwise alright.

Jill was shocked. She had left him to die... "Where'd you come from? I thought you were right behind us?" Jill exclaimed.

"You didn't think that. You left me behind because of what happened at Racoon, right?" Carlos told her.

"Woah, woah, what happened at Racoon? Why did you leave him behind, Jill?" Chris questioned in a rather confused manner.

Carlos shrugged. "I'll explain later. We gotta go, or we're gonna die."

The group questioned no more and ran after Carlos, supplies firmly in hand. The ship was still moving and shifting erratically, occasionally knocking our heroes off balance. The rain soaked their clothes, and they moved faster, dodging lightning and crates sent flying by the wind. The boats were near.

Leon jumped down onto the orange lifeboat first. The others followed in quick succession.

Chris noticed something strange. "None of the boats have been used! We should wait for survivors!"

Leon replied, " If they aren't here now, there aren't going to be any!"

Leon cut the rope and the lifeboat fell onto the surface of the waves, rocking to and fro with the roaring, salty breath of the ocean. The squad watched as the _Allegiance _became smaller and smaller, and as it sank into the depths completely.

After a while, Claire asked the question that was on everyone's minds, but which no one dared to speak. "How are we going to get back after we save Sherry and destroy the facility?"

No one had an answer to that.

They remained silent for a long while, watching night turn into morning, and the sun shone on their predicament. Jill chewed absently on a candy bar, uncomfortably aware that Chris was staring at her.

Chris broke the silence by shouting, " LAND HO!" as a distant island came into view. There was a flurry of activity as everyone got up to look at the island ahead. "Thank god," Carlos exclaimed.

The island got closer and closer until they were in shallow enough water to walk the rest of the way. They stepped onto land and their good mood dampened as they realized they were trapped here. They unhappily shook out their wet guns and damp clothes. There was no turning back now. They had to complete the mission, and figure out how to get back when it finally came up.

For now, this was their only option. Forward.


	4. Into Town

Jill crawled up the steep crest of sand that led off from the beach, lagging far behind the others, who were already walking along the suspicious dirt trail whose path led along and behind a large crag of rock jutting up from the otherwise grassy ground.

Leon was at the head of the group, leading the squad along the dirt path. He occasionally turned around to keep watch for any surprises. The others did the same, while Jill covered their rear.

Jill checked her machine gun quietly. It was cold, efficient, and deadly. Just like...Wesker. He had been dead for at least six months now. Six months ago, she had been released from her prison. Her own body. She was trapped for three years before that, unable to do anything but watch as she had killed dozens of people. She wasn't in control, but... oh god... she was still aware. She could feel the blood splatter, the bones _crunch. _She would forever be grateful to Chris for releasing her from her torment.

Leon held up his hand for the group to stop. There was a sign up ahead, and beyond it, a small town. There was no one to be seen in the mist that covered the town. The sun shone on Leon's sniper rifle, making it gleam brilliantly. He signaled for the others to take out their weapons as well.

_How many?, _Chris signed. Leon held up two fingers, and then one. _Twenty one. We can take them._ Carlos signed.

The group split up. Chris and Jill took a path that branched off to the side, while Leon and Claire took up a sniping post on the hill. Carlos moved towards the town on the main path, his assault rifle pointed forward. He came to the wooden bridge that crossed the gap between the town and the rest of the island. Slowly, carefully, Carlos moved across the bridge in such a way as to not make the boards creak. He stepped on a rotten board and it snapped in two, knocking Carlos off balance. He jumped the rest of the way across the bridge as the moans of the undead filled the misty air.

"Damn it," Leon said silently. He and Claire lay side by side, on top of the high crest of the hill. He had watched the action unfold from there, and he wasn't pleased. He spotted a zombie near Carlos, and promptly turned his head into a burst of unrefined gore. Claire did the same, and other gunshots joined them. Carlos began firing indiscriminately at the crowd,sending some of them back to the grave.

Chris and Jill turned the corner into the side path of the wooden town. It reminded him of Kijuju. And Sheva. He shook his head as he took cover behind the corner of a fruit shop._ Sheva's dead. No use thinking about her now. You have Jill, right? _Chrs looked around to reassure himself that she _ was _there. Suddenly, an infected villager with a seriously decayed face and grey skin rushed at him, veins pulsing in its face. It knocked him to the ground, and pinned him there. Chris tried to push it off, and found that this one was stronger than most. It's gaping mouth was wide open, lusting for Chris' flesh and bone. Chris shouted at it as he desperately struggled to get free of its iron grip. "Get the FU-." His words were cut short by two gunshots and the subsequent pair of impact noises. The zombie collapsed to the ground . Chris looked up. It was Jill.

They stared at each other for a few minutes before Jill finally said, "Are you going to get up, or are we just going to stand here gawking at each other?" Jill helped Chris up and they both moved towards the gunshots.

Chris put his bag down on a nearby crate and zipped it open. There lay a minigun. He grabbed it quickly, and pulled the trigger a couple of times. The barrels spun. "Oh, yeah. This is good."

Chris pulled a smaller bag out and fed the ammo belt from it into the gun. He heaved the gun off the crate and pulled the ammo sack around his shoulders. "Game time," He enunciated.

Meanwhile, Carlos had run into a building and sealed off the door. He grabbed a box of ammo from underneath a table and snapped it into his gun. He pulled back the charging handle, and aimed out the window. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Chris came around the corner of two adjacent buildings, and began firing this massive beast of a gun. He tore into the undead, reducing their bodies to gibs and blood. Chris screamed as the bullets riddled the crowd of the undead.

He stood in the middle of the corpse-strewn town, panting for air as he examined the bodies of his enemies. Carlos kicked down the door of the house, and Leon and Claire walked up from behind.

The five of them stood in silence, then Leon spoke, "Let's use this place as a base of operations. With our luck, there's more of them out there, and they won't be as easy to kill as these. Claire, clear out a pit so we can heap the bodies there and burn them. Chris will help keep watch here. Me, Carlos and Jill will look in the other houses for supplies and a good place to fortify ourselves in. We'll call you when we're done."

The others complied and did what was commanded of them. Jill tapped Leon on the shoulder as they were moving away from Chris and Claire.

"This is an atracioty. These people were living in this town because of Umbrella. They had ideal lives, and they took it away from them in a second. They saw us coming. The infection was still fresh. They know we're here."

Leon craned his neck around to look at Jill. He spoke to her in a calming voice, "We have been through these types of things before. All we have to do is wait seven days for rescue, and destroy this base with what we have. Where ever it is."

_**The man chuckled at his monitor. "It's going to be a lot more complicated than that, my subjects. You will help me, willingly or unwillingly."**_

_** He placed the battery cell he had been lugging along onto the chair beside him.**_

"_**I will find what I'm looking for."**_

**Oh noes! A mysterious man!**

**Who could it be? Someone important?**

**Find out next time!**

**Thanks for the R&R. Keep it up, friends!**


	5. Pit Stop

Uh... Houston, we have a problem.

I've gotten a bit of writer's block, you see, and well...

You guys are going to have to wait a while for the next chappie. Sorry! :(


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